


Promises

by Alien_Duck



Category: My Time At Portia (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Arlo didn't make it, Builder pov, Death, POV First Person, dealing with death, not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24457279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alien_Duck/pseuds/Alien_Duck
Summary: With all the missions he goes on, all the monsters he faces. All the danger he stands up to each and every day. At some point?At some point he won't make it home.And then you'll have to walk home alone, and stand at your front door, and know everything is different and nothing will ever be the same ever again.DEATH FIC!!!!! Angsty angsty death fic!!!!!
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, working on my longer fics where I have to remember what's happened before and set things up for later is a little beyond me, what with "current circumstances" and all.  
> But this? This I could do, especially since it wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> I apologise now for it.

The world is silent around me as I stand on my workshop’s doorstep, staring blankly at the door handle.

I know that it shouldn’t be. I saw people walking and talking on the road as they came up from the harbour. My cows and sheep were at the fence as I passed. The chickens are never actually quiet.

But I can’t hear it.

I can’t hear anything really. Haven’t heard anything besides the heavy, unending beat of my heart that I can’t escape since I looked up in the waiting room and saw Xu’s face.

Since I watched his mouth move to form the words I didn’t want to hear. 

His tired eyes telling the truth I couldn’t avoid.

I should probably care about the lack of outside sounds. About the white noise filling my head. The constant static drowning out everything.

But I can’t quite bring myself to.

The silence is almost comforting, in a strange way.

It surrounds me. Cocoons me. Shields me from more harm.

It demands nothing of me.

Unlike Nora, standing next to me, her hand on my shoulder squeezing in a way I can still feel through the full body numbness that took over me along with the silence.

Her mouth is moving again, saying something I can’t make out. Her eyes are still wet, still shining, and mine itch in something like sympathy. Even though I’m sure I ran out of tears hours ago. And her other hand…

Shit. No.

Her other hand is reaching for the handle. The handle I haven’t made any move towards, any effort to touch and turn.

Something flutters in my chest as I watch her hand inch closer to it slowly. Ever so, ever so slowly. As if time has slowed to a crawl, and each second is lasting minutes. Hours. _Days._

Because I don’t want to open the door.

I don’t want to go inside.

Because. Because if I go inside, then I’ll see.

I’ll see his spare boots, neatly lined up on the shoe rack.

I’ll see his brown jacket and that hat of his, hanging on his peg.

I’ll see the pile of things he emptied out of his belt pouches and pockets at the weekend when he washed everything, that he promised he’d have tidied away again before the next.

I’ll see all of his things scattered everywhere. All of the things that are meant to be there, for him to find easily and use. Because they’re his. They belong to him. Things I have no use for, no fondness for, that I’m going to have to face now, and I don’t want to see them!

But Nora’s hand doesn’t stop. Even as the silence in my head turns into a sudden, deafening roar. Even as the flutter in my chest turns into a thick, heavy band that squeezes tight and chokes me. Even as my sight blurs through a fresh wave of burning tears.

Her hand lands on it, and turns, and the door swings open. And her hand on my shoulder tenses, firms, then smooths down to the middle of my back as she gently pushes, her body shifting sideways to stop me from stepping back, from turning and running away. From putting this moment off for another time. From refusing to face my own home.

Her hand on my back pushes gently, and she makes me walk inside.

Make me walk into my home, and see all the things I dreaded seeing. That I didn’t want to face.

His boots. His jacket. His things spread out messily over the table.

See his new book sitting on his ugly footstool in front of his chair by the fireplace. See the stupid Soldier model from the ruin, standing in the corner with the flower crown he made me that one time draped over its hat. 

See his acceptance letter from all those years ago, framed proudly on the mantle.

See all the photos of us on the walls, almost covering them, there are so many.

Photos from when we were dating. From our wedding.

Photos of us and our--

The roaring stops again as my eyes find the largest photo, at the centre of the display. 

The photo of us and our children.

Because fuck. 

The children.

They don’t know. They’ve been at school, but they’ll be home soon. It’s about that time.

What am I going to tell them?

How am I meant to tell them that their Papa. Their strong, amazing, magical Papa. Their Papa who would do anything for them no matter how impossible. Their Papa who they love and adore and admire, whose footsteps they want to follow in because he always made every single thing he did sound like some great, grand adventure…

How am I meant to tell them?

How am I meant to put it into words?

How am I meant to put into words the thing I’ve been avoiding?

The thing I’ve known on some level since I saw him get hit, and he made that sound I’d never heard from him before?

Since I carried, _dragged_ him back to the clinic?

Since he whispered those things the entire way. His grip on me getting weaker and weaker. His voice getting softer and softer.

The thing I’ve refused to accept since it became reality.

How am I meant to break their hearts?

The first sounds to make it through my bubble of silence make me feel like I’ve been shoved in the river in the middle of winter.

Because it’s the children. They’re home. I can hear their bright laughter as they bicker like they always do, like today is a day like any other, and run closer. As they push the gate too hard and make it squeak.

And I.

I can’t.

I know I should.

I know I should be strong and face them. 

I should be the one to tell them.

Be the one to break their hearts and their worlds.

But I _can’t!_

Nora’s hand falls away when I jerk away from her, stumbling across the room to our, my, **_the_** bedroom, banging painfully into the doorframe before getting through, then slamming the door shut. Leaning against it as I try to breathe. I simply try to breathe around the tight, crushing, overwhelming pain in my chest that is choking me. That is filling my lungs and _choking me_.

It’s hard to stand. Even learning on the door, it’s so hard to stay upright.

So I stop trying.

I slide down, hands pressed against the wood as I get lower, until my knees find the floor. But I can’t sit like this, I can’t breathe sitting like this. So I turn around, still against the door, and as I do.

My breath catches, stopping completely as my eyes snag on his towels on the floor, where he left them after his shower, only this morning.

The scrunched up pile of towels by his dresser, despite the years of playful arguments we had about hanging them up on the rail in the bathroom. All the promises that he’d do it next time.

He never did hang them up.

And now he never would.

I sit and stare through more tears. Because that. That was one of the last things he touched. One of the last things he did, before he went out this morning. Possibly the last thing he wore that will still smell like _him_ , and not--

Shit. Shit, bad thought. No, don’t go there.

There are probably plenty of things that still smell like him. Maybe his clothes in his drawers? Or maybe they’d smell like washing powder instead.

His pillow will smell like him. And his side of the bed…

Fuck.

The bed.

How am I going to be able to sleep in the bed, without him there, next to me. 

Without him there next to me sleeping with his arm thrown out over the pillows, searching for me in his sleep. 

Without him clutching at my pyjama sleeve, and trying to pull me closer. 

Without him rolling over and throwing his arm over me, burrowing his face into my neck.

Without him murmuring my name in that happy, sleepy way he had.

Because he won’t do that. He won’t do any of that anymore.

Fuck. Just fuck.

How am I meant to live without him?

I’ve never considered it. I never thought I’d have to. He always said he was one of the best. He was always so careful. 

He promised he’d be careful.

He promised the kids every day he was here in town that no matter what happened. No matter what he faced that day. He promised he’d be back in time to tuck them in and kiss them goodnight. 

He promised he’d teach them. He’d train them. 

He promised he’d always be there for them.

Just like he promised me.

He promised he’d stay by my side.

He promised me years. He promised me _forever_. The stupid bastard promised me a lifetime of living with me. Of teasing me and loving me and infuriating me. Years of taking me on dates, making me laugh, complaining my hot sauce wasn’t quite hot enough.

He _promised_ me! He _swore_ in front of the Church and all our friends that we would grow old together!

He promised me.

But, a small part of my mind whispers to me as my face grows wet, my lungs burning with each desperate gulp I manage to suck down between sobs as the pain in my chest threatens to rip me to pieces from the inside.

Before he promised me, the quiet, level, completely void of emotion voice goes on. Before he even _knew_ me or what we might become to each other.

Before anything else, he made one other promise. 

One promise that he probably never meant to keep.

To protect Portia and her people with everything he had. Until his dying breath.


End file.
